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Dune Buggy

01-16-2006, 01:26 AM

so my friend wanted to build a dune buggy but has no fabrication skills at all so i told him i'd help him out and show him everything i know on the subject as we build it. Got the 1 5/8" .120 wall DOM tubing on friday along with the 1 1/2 .250 wall DOM for the 4 link and the control arms. Were using a Trick Tools model 3 bender which i am quite impressed with. drivetrain is a chevy 350/350 and a 10 bolt rearend (will upgrade when it breaks)

the only thing i dont like about how its turning out is the rear main hoop, it looks too wide.
but anyways let me know what you think. BTW: there will be alot more triangulation, the top rails are just sitting there right now.

looks like fun what are you use for front suspension? you fab your own or use straight axle? we are going to build one next year i think useing and s-10 rear and doing mods. to the frame and build a cage with 305/350th

miller 330 a/pb tig miller 175 mig
student and hobbiest

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we have s10 spindles and brakes and balljoints so im going to build the arms for the front. He has an s10 rearend too but its pretty narrow, so i traded him my 8.5" out of the camaro since im not going to use it and its got a limited slip.

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Im going to be building my own coilovers for the time being since good offroad ones are pretty expensive. For the front ill be using a pair of springs i grabbed from the junkyard and the rear will be using the origional front springs from my camaro. Also the rear will have a "cantilever" which will give me the mechanical advantage i need over the spring to lower the spring rate as well as giving me the 14" of travel needed.

For the chassis im using my MM251 right now its setup with .030 wire, but i alternate between that and .035 I dont have any pics of the welds on the chassis yet since its still tacked together but when i weld it up ill post some closeup pics. For the suspension pieces ill be using my syncrowave 180

thanks again,
Zach

AIM: Zachary188

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Started tig welding the control arms today, got one bead into them and ran out of argon. go figure...

So then i built the motor mounts and transmission mount/crossmember. owner wanted the crossmember to be welded not bolted. oh well he will figure out why it should be bolted when he has to change a tranny haha.

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Welded all the 4 link bars and the bushing ends of the a arms tonight. If you see anything in the welds that should be changed im open to suggestions. i was using 3/32 %2 T, 3/32 er 70-6? maybe Filler and about 120 amps
thanks
zach